Barstow Council names 8 abuses of power found in private probe of mayor, taps DA for action
A third-party investigation of alleged abuses of power and threats against Barstow employees by Mayor Paul Courtney produced eight findings, including efforts to weaponize police against political opponents, that the city’s district-elected officials have now referred to San Bernardino County’s head political-crime prosecutor.
The City Council’s meeting on Nov. 7 brought the first official disclosure of any details stemming from the nearly nine-month probe, which the City Council launched with a 4-0 vote in December 2021 after Councilman Tim Silva described having learned of “city employees being harassed by the mayor” and “a lot more […] than just threatening or firing a position.”
Matthew Summers, Barstow’s lead attorney from the Pasadena office Colantuono, Highsmith & Whatley PC, announced the eight findings of the city’s private investigator at the start of the public meeting Monday night after a closed session in which the City Council considered the implications and legal liabilities of the mayor’s conduct.
The findings, based on interviews with 19 unnamed people and Courtney himself along with reviews of internal documents, were read by Summers as:
“Mayor Courtney engaged in inappropriate behavior regarding the hiring of a City employee and provided false information to the former interim City Manager [Jim Hart] about the matter.
Mayor Courtney also engaged in intimidating behavior, threatening to terminate the employment of several City employees who he did not favor or who were connected to his political rivals and/or opponents. Of the several City employees who alleged having their jobs threatened by the Mayor, the Investigator found that only one of the employees did not have their job threatened by the Mayor.
Mayor Courtney engaged in inappropriate operational activities and direction on matters that are reserved for the City Manager.
Mayor Courtney attempted to elicit the City of Barstow Chief of Police to arrest and/or issue citations to Mayor Courtney's political rivals and to arrest those who spoke out against Mayor Courtney at City Council meetings.
Mayor Courtney revealed confidential and sensitive City Council Closed Session Meeting information to others who had no need or right to know the information.
Mayor Courtney made inappropriate comments concerning City employees.
Mayor Courtney used various manipulation tactics on employees to pit one employee against another to engender loyalty to himself.
Mayor Courtney employed heavy-handed communication techniques with various employees leaving the employees feeling that their jobs were in danger.”
Summers further announced five specific actions the City Council had approved in a closed session Monday night to open the possibility for a case at the San Bernardino County District Attorney’s Office and to directly reprimand Courtney, mostly by reiterating prior moves to ban him from City Hall and bar him from communicating with city employees.
“In response,” Summers said, “the City Council has taken the following actions with all councilmembers except Mayor Courtney approving these steps in closed session:”
“One, directed the mayor to refrain from communicating with any city employees except for the City Manager [Willie Hopkins], the 911 system or as allowed by the First Amendment or other applicable law.
Two, directed that the mayor be barred from City Hall except as his physical presence is legally required by applicable law, such as for council meetings.
Three, directed the mayor to not provide any direction to any city employees other than the city manager, and then only as part of a City Council majority vote in a lawful meeting.
Four, directed the mayor to not retaliate against any individual who he knows or who he may reasonably anticipate made a complaint, was a witness or otherwise participated in this investigation, nor to attempt to influence any individual who he knows or who he may reasonably anticipate made a complaint, was a witness or other persons who otherwise participated in the investigation.
Five, refer the matter to the San Bernardino County District Attorney’s Public Integrity Unit.”
Beyond these actions, the city now considers its third-party investigation of the mayor closed.
Barstow hasn’t named any private firms it tapped for the probe, but a letter Courtney shared with the Daily Press states that: “The City arranged for an outside investigator, Jeffrey Love, Esq., to conduct the investigation.”
The letter — addressed to Courtney by Summers on Sept. 13, one day after the City Council voted to ban him from City Hall — also shows that the mayor has tapped Los Angeles-based The Freedman Firm PC for legal defense from Michael G. Freedman, “who represents individuals and companies against all types of criminal charges and government investigations and in high-stakes civil litigation and appeals,” according to the firm’s website.
The findings summarized by Summers in public last week were essentially restated from the letter he sent the mayor last September, though that letter more specifically identifies “female City employees” as being the target of inappropriate comments by Courtney.
Courtney is doubling down on arguments he has made for months that the investigation is “a political hit job” based on “non-truths.”
He says City Manager Willie Hopkins, who has declined to publicly comment on the investigation, doesn’t support the probe and is a friend to him. Courtney also told the Daily Press that his phone had been “blowing up” after the City Council meeting last week with messages from city staff saying they oppose the City Council’s actions against him, though when asked if he can name any of the staffers in question, he said: “Of course not, because they live in fear of political blowback.”
One focus of the investigation, previously reported by the Daily Press and since confirmed in public, is an internal complaint by Barstow’s former Parks and Recreation head Kyle Woolley that Courtney exerted illegal pressure to get his then-fiancée and now-wife hired on the city payroll. The mayor has since framed this allegation as proof of the investigation crossing lines by targeting his family.
The probe appears to have gone beyond Woolley’s complaint, though, to allegations of further intimidation and threats by other employees.
One additional aspect appears to be three active lawsuits alleging a range of illegal conduct by Courtney with other city personnel further implicated: One suit filed by former City Manager Nikki Salas in April 2021; another filed in June 2021 by former Assistant City Manager Cindy Prothro; and a third filed in September 2021 by former Economic Development Administrator Amanda Hernandez.
Charlie McGee covers California’s High Desert for the Daily Press, focusing on the city of Barstow and its surrounding communities. He is also a Report for America corps member with The GroundTruth Project, an independent, nonpartisan, nonprofit news organization dedicated to supporting the next generation of journalists in the U.S. and around the world. McGee may be reached at 760-955-5341 or cmcgee@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter @bycharliemcgee.
This article originally appeared on Victorville Daily Press: Barstow Council names 8 abuses from probe of mayor, taps DA for action
